


Or are we dancer?

by thinlizzy2



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut, Oral Sex, Possible Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 02, Pregnancy, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-03-19 07:53:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13700166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/pseuds/thinlizzy2
Summary: Returned to Earth but with his memories of the Neighborhood and the Bad Place intact, Chidi takes stock of what he has in his limited human life and finds it to be pretty forking awesome.





	Or are we dancer?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [klutzy_girl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/klutzy_girl/gifts).



Chidi wakes up, and it is as frightening as always. 

 

He didn't dream at all when he was dead. He doesn't know if that's typical. More than once, Eleanor has mentioned dreaming in the Bad Place: flashes of scenes from her own life and death and longer more complicated glimpses of things that may or may not have ever happened. But he's never asked Jason or Tahani about it and so he isn't sure which of their experiences is the more unusual. For Chidi, for whatever reason, death had been a respite from dreaming. But he is alive again now and his nights are often full of what he learned when he was not. 

 

There are billions of souls spending eternity in torment because they failed to live up to an almost impossible criteria during their ridiculously short period of time on Earth. And Chidi is only mortal now and so he can do nothing to help them. That is terror, guilt and shame that the human mind was never meant to process. There are times when it threatens to overwhelm him, to force him to simply shut down rather than helplessly and endlessly confront what he knows. He cannot believe that he ever once deliberated for years over the ethical implications of ugly boots while this atrocity was happening and the guilt he feels over that wasted mental energy only adds to the emotional chaos.  

 

So like any other mortal creature, he reaches out in search of safety and comfort. Luckily, she is always there. 

 

Eleanor shifts and rolls towards him, her hands finding him and twining his questing fingers with her own. "Morning", she slurs, her voice distorted by her own sleep yet thankfully free of fear - his wife is one of the bravest souls he has ever met. "You okay?" 

 

Chidi answers as honestly as he can. "I think I want to be." 

 

She knows what he means and shifts towards him. With her head resting on his chest, his heartbeat slowly calms. While sleeping might mean nightmares, the act of lying awake with Eleanor Shellstrop beside him is a pure joy. He relishes every detail: the smoothness and warmth of her skin, the unique combination of artificial vanilla and genuine mammal that perfumes her hair, the growing heft of her belly against his side as the cells inside her divide again and again forming themselves into a child that is half made of her and half made of him. _Him_ , and that is somehow so amazing that it always makes him wonder if he is unknowingly still existing outside of human reality. 

 

Chidi has seen so many impossible things come to pass that he almost expects them now and yet what is happening inside of his wife amazes him most of all. 

 

"She's been kicking all night", Eleanor remarks as he feels the sudden jut of a tiny foot against her flesh. "I couldn't fall asleep until after two. Little Tahani Janet has a gift for torture. She really should trade notes with Michael's old crowd." 

 

Eleanor has always referred to their unborn child as female, even before the doctor confirmed it. She says that she simply knew it, the way she had known that she was in the Bad Place and that they could trust Michael to protect them from the other demons and that it was vitally important that she spend her second chance at human life with Chidi beside her. 

 

Chidi has learned never to argue with Eleanor when she just knows something. 

 

"Janet Tahani", he insists instead, even though he's fine with either version of the name. But they both enjoy this, the act of pretending to disagree so that they can withhold and negotiate and eventually capitulate. Those were the actions of their courtship in more than eight hundred different worlds and it gives them both great pleasure to recreate that here on the world where they will spend the very short bursts of energy that are their mortal times. 

 

Spurred into action by the reminder of what they have been through together, he cranes his neck downward to kiss her. Gently at first, and then with a playful bite to her lower lip. Chidi remembers Michael's disgust when he talked about this act. _Mashing your food holes together – that's not what they're for!_. Chidi supposes that the demon had probably been right but when Eleanor kisses him back he knows that if he ever had to choose between her and food then he would rather starve than be without this. 

 

Carelessly, as if unaware of how miraculous this all is, Eleanor slides her hand from his chest to his stomach and then lower still – a few gentle strokes at first and then a tighter grip. She is skilled at this; her talents in this area are deep and unknowable. Chidi has had other lovers; not as many as his wife but there have still been more than one. But it was never like this with any of those women; none of those relationships had possessed whatever it was that made things so good with Eleanor. _Understanding_ , he thinks. _Connection. Need._ And those words swirl in his head as his flesh hardens under her touch and pleasure pools in his groin, chasing the last vestiges of fear from his mind. 

 

"Bath time", Eleanor declares, hauling herself from the bed. Chidi whimpers a bit less manfully than he would ideally prefer at her sudden absence; maybe the dreams of the night before aren't quite as forgotten as he'd like to think. Or maybe he just craves her presence, as he always does. Eleanor laughs, bending back to the bed to kiss him. "Give me five minutes. I'll make it worth your while." 

 

And she does. Eleanor is not the type to soak in rose petals and milk surrounded by candlelight but none of that is necessary when there is pure delight in seeing her swathed in nothing but steam and cheap drugstore bubbles. Her engorged breasts float at the surface, their nipples darker and larger now then they were just a few weeks ago. Her body is changing because of him, because of what they have created together, and the very idea is so erotic that the thought alone almost undoes him. So when Eleanor beckons him over, parts the folds of his robe and licks a wet stripe along the length of his cock, he nearly topples into the water. She laughs again and braces his thighs with her hands, steadying them both as she takes him into her mouth. Chidi doesn't even try to stifle the groan that escapes from him. Eleanor wraps one soapy hand around the base of his erection, stroking him confidently in time with her sucking and he can feel their twinned pulses beating together through his cock and her fingers. It reminds him that they are _alive_ ; their whole lives are there in the blood pumping through their veins and the wet warmth of Eleanor's tongue and the deepening pleasure radiating outwards from where their bodies meet to every other cell of his body. They are alive and that is as honest and real as the scream that tears out of his throat as he comes – finally and much too soon – inside her perfect mouth. 

 

Eleanor's lips are swollen and red when he opens his eyes and concern floods through him. "Are you all right?" Chidi bends his knees to crouch beside the tub. His wife is so strong that sometimes it's hard to remember that she can be hurt just like anyone else. He rubs his thumb along her mouth. "Was that too rough?" 

 

Eleanor gives that snorting laugh that reminds him she is far tougher than most people give her credit for. "I'm fine, babe. But don't go thinking you're done yet." And then she pulls his hand down between her legs and even with all the water he can feel her own slicker wetness there. Chidi chuckles as well and kisses her again and again as his fingers twist and slide over and inside of her. He does it the way she showed him, just the way she likes it best, until she is writhing, moaning and finally still. 

 

"Are _you_ all right?" Eleanor asks as she settles back into the soapy water - more gentle teasing at the expense of his earlier concern. But Chidi pretends to take her seriously. 

 

"I'm not sure; I'm feeling weak. I think I might need a bit of water therapy." And then he is splashing into the tub, robe and all, as Eleanor shrieks, kicks water at him and wrestles with his legs until somehow he ends up seated behind her with her precious body cradled between his spread legs and resting against his chest. His robe billows in the water around them both and he feels impossibly happy. 

 

"Tell me, what are the moral implications of clothes in the bathtub? Is it ethical to drip water all over the house so that your pregnant wife has to walk around with wet socks?" Eleanor is making a good attempt at sounding firm but nothing could disguise the amusement in her voice. Chidi doesn't believe he could ever get tired of having her tease him, not even if he had all of eternity in front of him again. "You need to set an example for your students, Professor Anagoyne", Eleanor chides him. "We need your moral guidance." 

 

"Aren't you the one who told me I need to leave work at the office sometimes?" Chidi asks, and even Eleanor has to admit that he has a point. 

 

"Seriously though. _Are_ you okay?" Eleanor's voice is fading somewhat and he remembers what she said about a restless night. He should suggest she go back to sleep after this. "I know you and mornings." 

 

Chidi shrugs. "I'm all right. It's worth it. More than worth it." 

 

And it is. The terror of waking up every morning pales in comparison to the delight of finding her beside him again and again. Even the knowledge behind his fear of waking – the awareness that a day will come when he won't – is tolerable so long as he gets to spend his limited human life with her. 

 

Chidi has always been aware that he would die. Of course he has; he doesn't even remember a time when he was so young that he didn't understand that all lives have to end somehow. It just seemed less important, in the grander scheme of things, than Plato, Socrates and Kant. But since their return to human life the knowledge that his time here will be an infinitely small sliver of his actual existence somehow makes it feel more important rather than less. 

 

At least he is spending his time here in the very best way possible. He rubs Eleanor's belly, spreading soap suds across its proud dome. She sighs and leans deeper into his embrace as he continues the massage. The child - _his_ child, _their_ child - is in there. 

 

As far as miracles go, children are arguably common. Through her work with the Mindy St. Claire Rescue Alliance, Eleanor has helped to improve the lives of hundreds of kids even though she will never be able to meet most of them in person. Tahani already has an impressive bevy of adopted orphans from around the world and seems to add to that group constantly. And every month dozens more vulnerable young people sign up to learn EDM DJ skills through Jason's oddly specific and yet wildly successful youth organization. On a larger scale, there are more than seven billion humans on the planet and each and every single one of them started as a baby. It is a perfectly ordinary thing. 

 

Chidi dips his head and kisses the perfect expanse of skin that is Eleanor's neck. And despite everything that he knows, none of it _feels_ ordinary and perhaps that is the true miracle.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for klutzy_girl for HetSwap 2018. Klutzy_girl, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> The title comes from the song Human, by the Killers.


End file.
